This past year, Anne Ternus-Bellamy and I have sent each other occasional notes of encouragement as we've both covered the pandemic and its impact here in Yolo County. I talk to people about their experiences, while Anne has been deeply immersed reporting on the phenomenal rate of daily information generated by public health agencies and local government.
Anne grew up in San Anselmo, CA, where she first started writing for newspapers. She graduated with a degree in journalism from Northwestern University, and afterwards headed to Sacramento to work for a legal newspaper covering the state Capitol and courts. She took a long break from working full time — about 10 years — to stay home with her kids, though she still freelanced for the Enterprise and other publications and spent many years volunteering with Davis schools.
Anne has been a full time reporter at the The Davis Enterprise for about eight years, covering the county for much of that time, and the city for the last four years. Many of you will remember her excellent articles about inspiring youth for The Enterprise’s Next Generation page, which was discontinued four years ago. In this interview, I wanted to find out what her work has been like this last year, and we also had a far-ranging conversation spanning how we first met, to the future of journalism.